On March 9, the Maryland House unanimously passed HB 529, which lowers the number of signatures for a statewide independent from 1% of the number of registered voters (over 40,000) to exactly 10,000. The bill now goes to the Senate.
Reply
On March 13, a Superior Court Judge in California ruled that the lawsuit Ricardo De La Fuente v Padilla cannot succeed because of procedural problems. The issue is whether the candidate’s surname is De La Fuente or Fuente. He is running for U.S. House in the special election, 34th district, in April. He would have had a higher position on the ballot if his surname were deemed to be Fuente, as opposed to De La Fuente.
But the judge said the case is flawed because the Registrar of Voters of Los Angeles County was not included as a Defendant. Also the case had been filed on February 28, and the judge felt it should have been filed sooner. The ballots have already been printed. But the judge said that otherwise the lawsuit had merit.
Ricardo De La Fuente is the son of Rocky De La Fuente, independent presidential candidate in 2016. Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for this news. The case is Sacramento Superior Court number 34-2017-80002546.
South Carolina will hold a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 5th district, on June 20. Filing for party primaries and conventions closed at noon on March 13. Five Republicans filed for the Republican special primary; three Democrats filed for the Democratic primary. Among parties that nominate by convention, there are candidates from the Constitution, American, Libertarian, and Green Parties.
The candidate who filed for the Constitution Party nomination, Bill Bledsoe, also filed for the Libertarian nomination. But there are two others seeking the Libertarian nomination, Victor Kocher and N. Cooper. Under a strange South Carolina election law, if Bledsoe fails to get the Libertarian nomination, he will not be permitted to be on the ballot as the Constitution Party nominee, even if the Constitution Party nominates him.
The only candidate who filed for the Green nomination is David Kulma; and the only candidate who filed for the American Party nomination is Josh Thornton. Thanks to Rick Lass for the candidate list.
The Federal Election Commission will meet on March 23 and decide whether to extend the current exemption from campaign reporting that the Socialist Workers Party has been entitled to since 1974. On March 9, FEC staff prepared a possible draft for a ruling that would extend the exemption until 2020. This draft is far more sophisticated than earlier FEC drafts that denied an extension. To read the new draft, click on the link. Then choose “Pending Advisory Opinion Request.” Then choose “Draft AO Agenda Document No. 17-01-C.”
The new draft says, “The Socialist Workers Party candidate for President in 2016 achieved general election ballot access in seven states and received approximately 12,000 votes. The SWP has not placed any candidates on the ballot for the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives since 2012…the SWP and committees supporting its candidates receive very small amounts of contributions and very low vote totals in partisan elections relative to other political parties. This suggests that the activities of the SWP, its candidates, and committees supporting its candidates have little, if any, impact on federal elections.”
The new draft also incorporates instances of government and private harassment of SWP candidates and supporters that occurred in 2016.
Although there is no guarantee that the FEC commissioners will choose this draft, as opposed to the earlier drafts denying the extension of the exemption, the obvious higher quality of this draft makes it seem likely that it will be accepted by the Commissioners.
Pennsylvania holds a special election on March 21 to fill the vacant state house seat, 197th district, in Philadelphia. With no Democrat on the ballot, and the Green Party nominee also not on the ballot, only a Republican is on the ballot. But only 5% of the district’s voters are registered Republicans. This has led to many individuals campaigning as write-in candidates, according to this story.
Pennsylvania has no write-in filing procedure. All write-ins must be counted, under the law, although in the recent past Philadelphia election officials have violated the law and ignored all write-ins.